Guest timinator Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 here is a weird one... when i turn on my headlights, the brake lights come on too. i can hear the solenoid click in the automatic trany box, and i dont have to press the brake pedal to shift from park to whatever...sounds cool, but really its not so cool. this also means no cruise control after dark, also uncool. here is another clue... with the lights off, when i hit the brakes the front parking lights come on...saw that the other day when i pulled up to a storefront and saw the reflection. some kid would probably pay for that to happen..."an it goes bling bling in front when you hit da brakes man."...but once again, not cool with me. i figure there is a short but i dont know where to start looking. any thoughts would be appreciated. oh yeah, its a '94 pf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88pathoffroad Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 Dude, that's really wierd. It sounds like the wiring for the brake light switch on the pedal and the wiring for the running lights are spliced together somewhere. Has someone put an aftermarket alarm, trailer brakes or anything like that in it? Wierd fog light wiring? Anything like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest timinator Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 nope i bought it new, everything is stock no trailer hitch or extra lights installed car has factory alarm, never use it cant put my finger on exactly when this started thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Pickles Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 Weird. Like 88Path says, some sort of short between the parking lights and brake lights, causing either to power the other when 1 is activated? But where? The only place you'd think these would be close to each other would be the tail lights and the fuse box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest timinator Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 thanks 88 n mr. p i have a schematic on the way to do some ohming and checking for damage asap. i did find a guy on another forum with a 96 pickup who is having the same exact thing happening so there is something curious here...maybe a coinsidence but i rarely beleive in those. i did have some work done late last year perhaps around the time this started. my back bumper rusted out and i had a buddy put on a new one that i bought online. at the time he mentioned some trouble with the license plate lights and maybe he got something crossed so thats where i will focus first i guess...its the only place that has been disturbed lately...the muddy potato field excursion was a few years back. any other ideas would be appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Pickles Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 I bet that could be. Those lights are tied in as well, or at least come on with the rest. Let everyone know what you find, who knows who may need the insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denisb Posted May 26, 2004 Share Posted May 26, 2004 For trouble shooting sakes, try to remove both light bulbs in your rear signal light. It could be a bad ground in your tailights. I had a Dodge Shadow (oops didn't mean to swear) that had a bad grounded tailight and with the park lights on, when the brakes were applied the light would actually dim instead of brighten. If you would happen to have that same problem you could be sending a signal back to your front signal light also. If I was sitting in front of you with a piece of paper a a pencil I could show you how this comes to happen, but it's kinda hard to explain with words........I guess it's true what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words Let us know what you find Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest timinator Posted May 26, 2004 Share Posted May 26, 2004 Denis, thanks for the ideas on removing bulbs (and otherwise breaking connections) to try and get the problem to change. that might help shorten the search. turn signal lights are not involved in any of this as far as i can tell its running lights etc. it still could be a ground issue but perhaps a little different than your do_g_. i'll be checking it out this weekend in between bbq's i am also counting on the chiltons repair manual that i got used off amazon to arrive soon...hoping it will have a decent schematic...should have posed the question here before shelling out but i'll have something soon. will get back to the group with what i find L8r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denisb Posted May 26, 2004 Share Posted May 26, 2004 Yeah, my bad, both signal and brake light aren't in the same bulb . I wasn't thinking. My direction of trouble shooting was to try to eliminate the problem source. I'd say if you've got an electrical diagram look at what's common between both and go from there. Sorry I was watching the hockey game as I was writting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gacruiser Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I'll bet your buddy spliced one of your license lights into the brake circuit... Depending on how he spliced the circuit, it could cause your brake lights to come on with the running lights. Likewise, when you hit your brakes, it would feed voltage into your running light circuit, causing the parking lights to illuminate. You wouldn't be able to notice if your taillights were illuminated because they would be coming on simultaneously with your brake lights, making it appear that only the front parking lights were coming on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Pickles Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I'll bet your buddy spliced one of your license lights into the brake circuit... Depending on how he spliced the circuit, it could cause your brake lights to come on with the running lights. Likewise, when you hit your brakes, it would feed voltage into your running light circuit, causing the parking lights to illuminate. You wouldn't be able to notice if your taillights were illuminated because they would be coming on simultaneously with your brake lights, making it appear that only the front parking lights were coming on. That's what I was getting at. Good wording. Back to English class for me. -study- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest timinator Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 fixed it. the license plate light was repaired correctly, it was simply a broken wire that was fixed. i was all over the schematics and checking wires for damage....nothing obvious so i pulled out the right rear tail light bulb and the problem went away. i put it back in, the problem returned. i pulled the left rear taillight bulb and the problem remained. thats when i noticed that the left bulb was an 1157 and the right one was an 1156!! the 1157 has two posts on the bottom one for running lights and one for brake lights. the 1156 has one post on the bottom so when it was in there it shorted the brake lights to the running lights. this was not very obvious when looking at the chiltons electrical diagrams but hey, i can use the cruise at night again. oh, and feel free to call me a goof or whatever for not putting it togther that the problem happened concurrent with the bulb replacement months ago. thanks again for the ideas. be safe out there tjm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Pickles Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 Good find! Gotta love the bazillion different types of bulbs there are to choose from. And the problem turned out to be basically the same idea people were saying, just happened in a different way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88pathoffroad Posted June 4, 2004 Share Posted June 4, 2004 Jeez, no wonder! Good find! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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